History
Mr Hodgkinson
Head of Humanities
The religious education curriculum has been designed in line with the locally agreed syllabus of Blackburn and Darwen along with the latest publication ‘Developing a Religion and Worldviews Approach in Religious Education in England’ from the religious education council. By following an enquiry-based approach to learning students gain an understanding of how worldviews work in human experience, including a student’s own, so that they can understand the complex world around them.
The aim of the curriculum ensures that students are exposed to collectively enough substantive and disciplinary knowledge to allow them to not only make sense of the complex world around them but internally reflect on the impact these views have on them. Before this can be achieved students need to understand how to study the subject. This means they will need exposing to both an understanding of worldviews and the lenses used to study RE so that students can fully explore our modern world and the discourse that has shaped it.
The right to withdraw.
In accordance with UK law, parents can withdraw their child from Religious Education in school to provide their own provision of the subject. All requests of this nature should be sent to Mr Hodgkinson, Head of Humanities, jake.hodgkinson@darwenvale.com.
R.E Curriculum:
What can a student expect from the Faculty?
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Qualified and enthusiastic teaching staff
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Help, guidance and support
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Quality first teaching designed to challenge, inspire and ensure progression
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An interesting and relevant course for the future
Vision & Aims
At DVHS our religious education curriculum is designed to expand students’ knowledge of the world’s complexity and to develop enquiring minds that embrace the different values, ideas, and cultures around them. In religious education we aim to develop well-rounded individuals who can make positive contributions to society whilst considering their own opinions on the ultimate meaning of life. Throughout the units of study, we enquire about big religious ethical and moral questions that provoke curiosity and passion. We embed debate and discussion skills where students are encouraged to articulate their opinions accurately and where they are able to frame evidence-based arguments. Students explore a range of worldviews and are encouraged to make informed and balanced judgements. The vital skills of self-expression, empathy, and the ability to display tolerant attitudes underpin everything we achieve in religious education across the Key Stages at DVHS. This is so we can fulfil our aim to create free thinking, academically informed members of society who can engage in public discourse about important religious and non-religious worldviews that shape our global landscape.
Key Stage 3 - Curriculum Overview
Students will start in year 7 building up an understanding of how to study religion and worldviews. This will focus on exploring types of worldviews and the various lenses used to view information in the subject. After this students’ will look at the Abrahamic faiths looking at Jesus and his role and presentation in each faith to explore central theological concepts held in each religion. After this students’ will look at the concept of dharma as a central thread throughout dharmic faiths as a way of completing their overview of the core components of the 6 major worldviews. This will serve as the key understanding to be built upon.
In year 8 students will then progress to focus on the way worldviews are lived throughout our world looking at a range of moral, philosophical and ethics questions, such as why does suffering exist or why be a good steward. This will allow students to connect with other areas of learning such as sentence structure and syntax from English and historical and geographical nuances of worldviews from other humanities subjects to name a few. It also allows students to expand upon their base theological understanding by incorporating a range of lenses to view the new information to expand the worldviews these questions have created along with their impact in our world.
In year 9 students spend time focusing on the in-depth philosophy of lived worldviews. Doing this allows for a confident application of the substantive and disciplinary knowledge required to fully unpack more complex worldviews. It also allows students to begin exploring more adult topics such as the use of violence, death, or the impact of extreme actions. Year 9 also revisits and builds upon what has come before so students can really build up the messiness of people’s worldviews that have shaped our world into what it is today.
Key Stage 4 - Curriculum Overview
At Key Stage 4 all students study the subject as part of a core curriculum delivered 1 hour a week during form time. This has been developed in line with the Blackburn and Darwen agreed syllabus all students follow an accredited GCSE short course, which makes up the themes of the lessons. The lessons are built in a way to engage students’ and open a debate about vital topics to their lives, from family roles to abortion.
Students can also select GCSE religious studies as one of their options. This involves looking at a study of both Christianity and Islam by looking at their central beliefs and practices before applying this knowledge to ethical issues. These ethical issues require students to share their own perspectives alongside religious perspectives to get to the best course of action for themselves and our world. It is a fascinating subject that challenges the students views about relationships, life and death, good and evil, along with a final topic about human rights.
What we teach and when we teach it